Welp, it’s time to come up with another movie to review…

As I was perusing all the other websites trying to come up with something for the next review (i.e. “borrowing ideas from more talented people than I”), I couldn’t help but notice that I need to come up with a REASON to write. If left to my own devices, I would be the Whitman’s Sampler of Bad Movie Blogs…wait, the Russell Stover of Bad Movie Blogs…uh, the whatever’s the best of that type of cheapo chocolate candy sampler thing desperate folks give significant others for V Day.

What with all the AI goodies they have nowadays, you’d think that I could whip out something in the style of (insert best blogs here…I’ve GOT to learn how to put a blog roll somewhere in here…do they still call them that? I’ve been old since 2005–an uber serious bout of heart failure/pneumonia will do that to you. I should’ve kept my Xanga Journal Chronicles of THAT whole mishegas!)

I should’ve known something was wrong–I wanted to wait until my 30th birthday…THEN I wanted to wait until my parents celebrated their anniversary on 7 December (yep…the anniversary of Pearl Harbor as well!) So, I waited until 8 December…but there was a goddamned snow and ice storm! Being the epitome of cheap, I claimed to my mother that I was going to WALK to the goddamned bus stop (icy roads/sidewalks/and downhill almost all the way!) Why pay $15 for a cab ride when I could pay $0 by using my college/staff pass? WIN-WIN!!!!

Of course, my mother merely chalked this up to the fact that I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Thanksgiving; hadn’t eaten more than 800 calories per day since Satan knows when…and I was beginning to hallucinate. These weren’t those hallucinations where you think you see something in the corner of your eye…these were the type where you’d be having an extended conversation asking Larry Fine what it was like to pal around with Clint Eastwood, Edward G. Robinson, Phyllis Diller, Redd Foxx, Edy Williams (and also was Harry Cohn as big a putz as everyone said he was, and how he [Larry] felt about Moe’s son in law, Norman Maurer thinking he was the best actor and funniest comedian of all the Stooges…mind you, he was son in law to Moe and nephew in law to Shemp and Curly!)

It was around this time (with plenty of recovery time on my hands, when I started on my blogging of terrible movies. I came by this via my parents–the late 1970s and early 80s was a world where you had to watch SOMETHING after Wrestling at the Chase (we’ll forget what came on before that…Jerry Damn Falwell), boring talk shows, church crap on radio, OR, whatever terrible movies they were playing on KPLR-TV (Channel 11). But this was thirty years later, so I had South Park to help me along. Did I start my video collection of “Laughter is the Best Medicine” at this time, supplementing my aging Three Stooges videos that were peppered with commercials for The Waterbed Store (it looks like we see the end screen of a Shemp or Joe era short…and this was when it was still on those same reels from 1958), Becky (Queen of Carpet) and Wanda (Princess of Tile) along with a special surprise guest, one Mr. Steve Mizerany! Fantasy Jim Coachworks (whose commercials probably featured at least ONE someone I was familiar with); and later in the 90s, terrible, poorly acted, and out and out scams of “hot girls” you could talk to by calling “1-900-GIRL! Pick up the phone! Pick up the phone!” (This is a reasonable facsimilie thereof…)

That was a VERY convoluted way to tell you that 1: I need to find “new” terrible movies to review and 2: I need to figure out how to do a damn blogroll (or whatever they call that on WordPress.) This is also a convoluted way to tell you that sometimes I prefer watching/reading OTHER people review movies than do the “dirty work” myself. I mean, come on–that’s how I get my material for the few movies I do write about. How else would I have written about Savage Intruder (which has a degree of Stoogeration–Joe Besser as the tour bus driver).

Yes, this was a long-winded diatribe about my attempt to do a March Mayhem and Madness Blogathon where each and every obscure film will either be from the 1970s and have at least one degree of Stoogeration, or will be just a terrible junky exploitationer…with a degree of Stoogeration. I’ve got a little over two weeks to get some ideas together, so let’s hope I come up with something or other…

It Truly Was the End of an Era…

Today is the day I consider to be the end of the Three Stooges, and here’s why:

In He Stooged to Conquer (aka Moe Howard and the Three Stooges), Moe stated that he was not ready to retire on that fateful day in January—to be fair, they were right in the middle of a film. What was interesting about this was that Howard himself stated in 1965 that the Stooges probably had about five more years in them, then they’d retire. Did he just say as a sort of a flip answer to a question he’d probably been asked since the 1950s, or did he really think that their time was nearing an end? Compare that with another quote of his, “Forever’s a long time, but with a little luck, we just might make it.”

I saw it as a little of both—considering they’d all been performing since they were LITERALLY CHILDREN, it was in their blood to keep on going. Sure, traveling took a toll during the early days, but by the late 1960s, they could jet around the world on PanAm or (a sponsor for the infamous Kook’s Tour) TWA…and speaking of Kook’s Tour, the whole idea of the show (it was supposed to be a TV show that they first made plans for in 1965). However, by 1970, the plans for round-the-world travel to exotic locations had been scaled down to…fishing, boating, and general retirement activities.

I’ve mentioned the home movie aspect of the film before—it definitely looks and feels like a home movie (but not the kind you’d wish someone would shut off). It’s just a bit…off. I haven’t seen it in at least 15 years (I bought it on VHS, so it’s probably longer than that), but I do remember liking it and being a bit surprised at how spry Larry (of all people) was—he even delivered a couple of pratfalls chasing Moose (director Norman Maurer’s Lab). I also couldn’t help but be surprised at how TINY all of them were—when they met fans, you noticed that they were maybe five and a half feet tall…if they had lifts in their shoes.

Now, where was I? Something something the future of the New New New New Three Stooges. If the twin tower of the team is no longer there, what do you do? At this point, do you really want to audition comedians? If you did, who was going to be a good fit? They had to be the right age (at least in their mid-to-late fifties), no more than five feet six inches tall, and willing to do slapstick. By 1970, there weren’t many (if any) comedians that were going to put up with that, especially since you didn’t know how long you’d have the job before Moe and Curly-Joe wanted to retire.

But there was one comedian that would fit those shoes (except being five foot six—he was probably closer to five seven)…one Emil Sitka, longtime foil to the Stooges since their days at Columbia (one of the only two men that worked with all three sets of Stooges—the other was Harold Brauer). Sitka could be brought in with very little (if any) rehearsal and since he was already known from his work with the Stooges, it would be rather easy to change his name (he was going to be “Harry,” Larry’s cousin.)

Now, the problem was finding a project that was worthy of the New New New New New New Three Stooges. There was a movie written by one of Moe’s grandsons entitled Make Mine Manila which would have taken the fellows over to the land of Marcos…the Philippines (ask the Zombies about the joys of touring in the Philippines and being “guests” that had to escape with suitcases full of money). Whether or not Moe had even heard of the Zombies’ adventures is unknown, but he definitely didn’t want to go there—but he also didn’t want to say that not only was the project was a bad idea, he also didn’t like the script. It was discussing among the three of them and Emil decided to be the “bad guy” and nix the idea. According to The Three Stooges Scrapbook, everyone was shocked at his “star turn,” wanting a limo and maybe not even being available.

And this is where things take a strange turn. According to Joan Howard Maurer, she knew why Emil said what he said and agreed with him. However, Jeff and Greg Lenburg (the other authors of Scrapbook) took that story and ran with it…as if it were true. While Joan wanted the truth told about why they turned down the film, she was overruled, and I’m fairly certain that Sitka never really forgave her for that. Interestingly, I was told a similar version of the story by some older gentleman that hung out at Waldenbooks back in the day (hey, it was 1982 and while my parents shopped next door at JC Penney, I made my home at the bookstore…it was a different time!) He may have worked at KPLR-TV back in the day, or maybe one of the radio stations—he knew the Stooges well enough to regale me with stories that weren’t outrageous enough to be lies, but weren’t boring enough to be from a book or something that had been learned third or fourth hand.

Make Mine Manila was supposed to get off the ground in 1971, but crashed and burned before it even started. However, this lack of work made me wonder—were there dates that they were contractually unable to fulfill after Larry’s stroke, and if so, where were they? I always said that if I’d won the lottery, that would be one of the things I’d research—what did the Stooges do between 1970 and 1975? I find it hard to believe that ALL their dates dried up in January 1970, but for such a recent era, there certainly doesn’t seem to be much information out there…if there are any superfans out there that can lead me in the right direction, please do! I’ve scanned Los Angeles and Boston newspapers from 1969-1976—Moe mentioned in He Stooged to Conquer/Moe Howard and the Three Stooges that the New (to the 5th power) Stooges DeRita, Garner and Mitchell) had opened in Boston “but would’ve made better seltzer because they fizzled just as fast.” Compare that to DeRita’s version: “We did okay. We were even getting a few solid laughs.”

One thing I found odd, even in 1982 when I first read Moe Howard and the Three Stooges, was the fact that even I knew some of the dates were off. I knew that Kook’s Tour had barely limped into 1970, much less the relatively late date of 1971 (it was rather exciting that there was an “unknown” Stooge film out there from the recent past!)  I wonder how I would’ve reacted if I’d have seen it in 1982 rather than 1999 or 2000—the fact that it wouldn’t have seemed as dated would’ve been a plus, but then again, the infamous Jet Set/Blazing Stewardesses mishegas looked more dated and that was from 1975!

I find it rather fitting that the Stooges couldn’t find a fitting project without Larry—yes, the DeRita/Garner/Miller version of the Stooges existed, and yes, the Howard/DeRita/Sitka version tried to get off the ground in April 1975, but none of them worked in the long run. Okay, The Jet Set didn’t work because Moe was dying of cancer, but they were rehearsing and ready to go. Stika recalled having his bags packed and was ready to go to the location, but received a call that Moe was too ill to continue. (The completed film, Blazing Stewardesses, was completed by TWO of the THREE Ritz Brothers!)

And that was how it ended—Larry died on 24 January 1975, and Moe died some three months later on  4 May 1975.